Living in the Luan Jing Tan Development Area

Most people arrive at development areas having lost everything to the desert. So international development agencies are helping to provide housing for those who need it most.

Living in the Luan Jing Tan Development Area Kelly Lerner (ADRA): The second thing straws basically a waste product you can see it burning even around here in this community and so you’re using a material that would normally be going up in smoke and you’re putting it into your house so that’s less expensive and it’s also sustainable because straw is renewable every year it’s not like brick that takes a lot of energy to produce or wood that takes a long time to grow. Correspondent: For many the idea that your house can be made largely of straw is hard to accept but for environmental refugees like those in Alashan straw bale houses are one way they can get excellent affordable shelter and on fragile land like the grasslands on the edge of China’s growing desserts its vital to use renewable and sustainable building materials. Wood is scarce and soil for brick making is also badly needed but natural vegetation and for agriculture. Yang Cun Long (farmer): Over there is watermen. That is the core. The wheel is in the middle. There are peanuts, peppers, yams, squash, we have everything sunflower. We have 7 or 8 crops on around 9 hectares of land. Correspondent: --one of Alashan’s development areas started in the 1970’s shows the ability and determination of the Chinese to create habitable man made oasis in the dessert step. Yang Cun Long (farmer): That is all the tree barrier and beyond are the sand. Before planting here we had to plant the trees and make a barrier. Without this barrier sandstorms like we had this year would have completely covered this area with sand. It would be covered with sand this thick. Correspondent: After 25 years – looks in fields like a well established farming community. The 2600 people living here started out just like those in Luan Jing Tan. The marginal step land was a portion to landless farmers and they were encouraged to do their best to combat the dessert and build an agricultural base. The hard working people that – have transformed this vast vegetation of the step almost beyond recognition but just outside the development area the desert lurks. Male: If nothing is done basically desertification process is bound to accelerate and so there is a need for a very bold intervention. Correspondent: The Chinese have tried many intensive measures in an attempt to hold the desert. The largest business in Alashan is the Ji Lan Tai Salt Lake. It employs 7000 people and brings much needed cash to Alashan. It’s crucial for the economy that the enterprise continues, over the years the company has invested millions of dollars to keep the desert at bay. Yang Li Ming (Ji Lan Tai Salt Lake): We have worked on this project for 18 years we use plants including --, willows and specific grasses and bushes to protect salt lake from the desert. At the present we have planted about 1,800 hectares for trees. Our regions rainfall is quite low just 100 mm per year but evaporation is 3,200 mm per year for the trees to survive we must use a sprinkler system and underground water supplies to water them. Correspondent: Mr. Yang’s team of 90 people are protecting the Salt Lake successfully but it’s hard to imagine where either the investment or the water would come from to use these active measures in the entire region. Many analysts have begun to question the long term value of large scale tree planting on the grass lands as a magic bullet against desertification. They consider that it is very important to understand the exact causes of desertification and to address these rather than to try to fight against the sand. Male; At the end of the day desertification is not nature hold phenomenon. It’s not something which is bound to upright it’s something which is in most cases policy induced so the importance of policy and the importance of people who are affected by this policies is critical.